The Upton Ambush, February 15 1921.By Brian Dornan
The Upton Ambush, February 15 1921.By Brian Dornan On this day, in west Cork, in 1921, at least eleven people were killed in a vicious ten-minute firefight at Upton train station during the Irish War of Independence. By John Dorney. IRA guerrillas, in this case from the Cork No. 1 Brigade. At 10:18, on February 15, 1921, a station master at Upton station, a small isolated red-brick building on the line between Cork city and Bandon, was approached by a person he later described as “a stranger”, who asked him when the next train from Cork was in. The railway employee told him that a goods train was due in about ten minutes. “What about the passenger train?”, the man asked. That was due shortly after, he was told. The man went away, “satisfied”, but minutes later 14 armed men descended on the station, tied up the station master and made ready to fire on the incoming train. Some made a “strongpoint” of corn bags, while others occupied the station house itself. An improvised ambush The guer...